Paver pleads
guilty

By ALBERT McKEON

Staff Writer

Special Topic: Paved with bad intentions

Paved with Bad Intentions: An in-depth look at paving scams that prey on the elderly”

If anyone ever shows up at your door claiming to have “leftover asphalt” that could be used to pave your driveway at cut rates, don’t believe it. A lengthy investigation by The Telegraph that started with the arrest of a local paving contractor puts the spotlight on a nationwide scam that has its roots in and around Nashua.

In a seven-day series, The Telegraph introduced readers to a clan of notorious cross-country paving scammers who share the same techniques and in many cases the same last name. Find out how they operate; how they’ve attracted the attention of law enforcement from Maine to California; their connections to the Nashua area; and how you can avoid becoming the next victim.

To read Telegraph stories on paving scams and the entire Paved with Bad Intentions series, as it is published, CLICK HERE

NASHUA – Thomas Stanley will have to search for employment other than in the family business of driveway paving.

One of three family members accused of using fraudulent door-to-door sales tactics and performing shoddy work, Stanley pleaded guilty Monday to the felony charge of theft by deception for a scam at a city auto repair shop.

He received a suspended one-year prison sentence but must refrain from paving work in New Hampshire for five years as part of his plea agreement.

Stanley, 20, must also pay $250 restitution to the owner of the repair shop and pay a court fine of $1,000. If he fails to remain on good behavior over the next three years, Stanley would have to pay an additional $1,000 penalty and face prison time.

Prosecutors allege that the scam at the repair shop mirrored what the Stanleys have done to numerous residents: Start with an offer for a small job, then lay more asphalt and demand exorbitant fees. Often, the paving work is shoddy, victims have claimed.

The family allegedly targeted homes in the Nashua area, and the siblings allegedly did the same in at least one other state, Connecticut.

Thomas Stanley’s guilty plea is the second made by a member of his family. His younger brother, 19-year-old Joseph C. Stanley, pleaded guilty in June to 11 felony charges for his role in the operation.

The family patriarch is in county jail after allegedly violating his parole and resisting arrest while awaiting trial.

In June, Cornelius V. Stanley contacted one of the participants involved in the scam, Wallace Wilson, and resisted arrest when police served a warrant for the alleged violation.

Wilson, an employee of Cornelius Stanley’s company, CVS Paving, pleaded guilty in June to a felony theft charge for being an accomplice in a scam at the auto shop, a crime that Thomas Stanley and Joseph Stanley confessed to participating in.

The Stanleys and Wilson paved the East Hollis Street parking lot of the repair shop last summer without the owner’s permission, prosecutors claim.

They then tried to intimidate the owner, Michael Bell, into paying more than what they told an employee the job would have cost, prosecutors allege.

Thomas Stanley is paying $250 restitution to Bell. Cornelius Stanley was indicted in that scam, and jury selection for a trial in the case is scheduled to start Sept. 7.

Earlier this summer, Joseph Stanley’s attorney and the attorney general’s office reached a deal in which prosecutors will seek no more than a five- to 10-year prison sentence and the defense can argue for a lesser sentence.

Eleven misdemeanor charges were dropped, and a one-year sentence on a habitual offender charge will probably be considered already served because Stanley has been in jail since July of last year, the attorney general’s office has said.

A sentencing hearing for Joseph Stanley is scheduled for Aug. 30.

Albert McKeon can be reached at 594-5832 or amckeon@nashuatelegraph.com.